Brace Yourself: TV is Fake

Is he going to notice the mold on the windowsill?! Is he going to notice the — MOLD!! THERE’S MOLD ON THE WINDOWSILL!! LOOK OVER THERE!! Oh, man, this is exciting TV!

In news that could prove quite shocking to no one, more and more reality TV shows are turning out to be fake. I know. Fakery reigns, from Survivor inserting fake footage to make the challenges look more exciting, to participants on multiple shows being goaded into fighting, to it turning out that the contestants on Cash Cab aren’t random, but carefully selected and screened, to the revelation that the HGTV show House Hunters usually features people who are in fact totally and definitely hunting for a house, except for the fact that they’re not. Apparently most of the featured people on this program have already bought a house, and then they pretend to look at other houses before inevitably choosing the house they’ve already signed the loan for. Often, apparently, the houses the people are taken to look at aren’t even for sale.

Now – side note – I try not to pass judgment on other people’s viewing tastes (that’s a lie), but I’m not sure I get the appeal of watching people buy a house. Maybe I need to give the show a try, but unless they’re looking at underwater houses, or tree houses, or something, it just sounds tiring. But now it’s watching people who are not even really looking at houses. Truly, it is a golden era for television, isn’t it?

Anyway, just in case, to protect you against future shocks, here a few things you might want to be prepared for on television:

Pulling weeds isn’t as hard as infomercials would have you believe. It is, however, a million times more boring.

Charlie Sheen is not really a lovable scamp. He is both a loathsome person, and clearly mentally ill. Neither of these things are “entertainment.”

Liar!

The island from Lost isn’t a real place. It exists in your mind. Or the afterlife. Or something.

Joanie doesn’t really love Chachi. She was just using him for his muscle-tees.

The Kardashians are not really interesting. I don’t even know who they are, beyond a name and a tabloid industry.

Supplies are not really limited. Unless you consider that all things are, technically, finite. Someday the sun will grow large enough to consume the Earth, and supplies will no longer be available

The judges on America’s Got Talent don’t really think every single contestant is going to be a huge star. But turning to each other and saying, “Wow. That guy isn’t going to go far with that, but he’ll always have a moderately interesting talent. Maybe he’ll be able to book a club in Wichita.”

Sexy, available ladies are not really waiting for you to call. Maybe the island on Lost was supposed to be a parallel universe? You know what, I probably need to see that final episode a few more times.

Medical cures are usually not instantaneous, even if prescribed by Dr. House. In the real world, sometimes it takes a whole day to recover from debilitating illness (and from the 15 extremely invasive medications Dr. House prescribed on a whim).

Donald Trump, in a quiet moment before assembly.

Donald Trump is not really a human being. He is a puppet in need of repair, being operated by 3 guys who don’t talk to each other.

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About The Byronic Man

Recently voted "The Best Humor Blog in America That I, Personally, Write," The Byronic Man is sometimes fiction, sometimes autobiography. And sometimes cultural criticism. Oh, and occasionally reviews. Okay, it's all those different things, but always humorous. Except on the occasions that it's not. Ah, geez. Look, it's a lot of things, okay? You might like it, is the point.

A police office kindly reminded me of this fact after we were robbed and I politely asked “are you going to take fingerprints?” and he said “you watch too much T.V. lady” as he sat in his dry car. We stood out in the POURING rain for over an hour waiting…because I didn’t want to disturb the crime scene. I can no longer watch CSI with the same awe.

Can you imagine a “real detectives” TV show? They show up to the crime scene, get everyone’s statement, sigh, tell you they’ll see what they can do but don’t get your hopes up, then you fight with your insurance company.

I feel her pain..literally. Just the stress of being tested for everything under the sun with no answers is enough to take a person down, not to mention the cost. Unbelievable! Thanks Dr. House. I’m glad she got her answer.

Are you telling me that those people never went on a three hour tour? That you can’t make a bicycle out of bamboo and coconuts which can generate electricity? I’m sorry, but I think you’re wrong. You HAVE to be wrong, or my entire childhood is a lie!

Have you ever seen GalaxyQuest? Fantastic movie – if you haven’t seen it I highly recommend it (and you’ll see the cover and think I’m an idiot, but trust me on this one). There’s a great moment when the protagonists are trying to explain that the TV broadcasts these aliens have been picking up aren’t “historical documents,” that they’re just pretend. Sigourney Weaver says, “I mean, you don’t think Gilligan’s Island is real” and the aliens all suddenly look forlorn. “Those poor people…”

I actually frequently use it in my film classes. It’s extraordinarily well-written, in terms of entertainment – it not only manages to appeal to Trekkies and Trek-Haters, you’re in a constant state of enjoying what’s happening and wondering what will happen next.

I remember that the thinking was that Trekkies stayed away because they thought it was mocking them, and non-trekkies stayed away because they wouldn’t get the jokes. Usually that sort of analysis ignores the fact the the movie in question just plain sucked, but in this case that makes sense. I genuinely don’t know if I’ve met someone who’s seen it and didn’t enjoy it.

I am in utter shock. Are you serious? Cash Cab isn’t real? That is it. I have completely given up on the fate of the human race now.

Some day soon I am waiting to find out my own life is really a reality show like Truman. Granted, it would be the world’s most boring show but, sometimes I think it must be fake and all these family members are really actors.

I’m hoping that this means that all of those Disney and Nick programs — the ones that celebrate incredibly rotten teenagers who are oh so much smarter than the dumb-ole adults and let everybody know about it with snottiness — aren’t real either. A quick trip to the mall makes me fear you are mistaken, Bryonic.

I love HGTV. But last night I was watching their Design Star competition, which I also love, and the challenge was to design an office for Chris Jenner, who apparently is the mom of the Kardashians. And the show right after that was about designing obscenely expensive closets…and it was for the same person!

I thought at least on HGTV I could get away from that hideous franchise! And now you say House Hunters is rigged? I am bitter and disillusioned.

The key to pulling weeds is to find someone dumber than you and offer them lemonade/drugs/shiny things in return for pulling the weeds. At least, that’s what my sister always told me when she was bringing me my lemonade…

Don’t get me started on the Kardashians. There was barely enough meat for one show, and they turned it into three… I tell myself that they probably donate lots of money to charity. Self-preservation, then I don’t have to bang my head against the wall.

Sadly, “Hoarders” is one show that is “real”…a friend of mine has produced afew of them & says its hard to keep staff for the show because its so emotionally draining…..
On another note, I always thought ChaChi could’ve done better, someone without the racoon eyes…

That makes so much sense! That means the news aren’t real too!! Fox News isn’t really fair and balanced, Mitt Romney is just acting as if he is running for president, and Obama only pretends to be running the country!

Ha! I don’t know if I’m happy or sad that I was still an eensy bit surprised about House Hunters. I think the appeal of that show is the whole ‘peek inside the medicine cabinet’ mentality. AND you get to know out how much the house (allegedly…) costs. …Not that I watch these shows or anything. No way.

Charlie Sheen. Don’t get me started! Is he getting any help??

And can someone PLEASE explain Two and A Half Men to me?! I can’t watch it because it actually steals light from my soul.

Oh, sure. Next you’re going to tell me that there’s no such thing as teleportation and Magnum was never really a P.I. and also it’s hard to run around in short shorts jumping over cars in Hawaii without burning one’s thighs. PS I have friends who were on House Hunters, and they really were looking and buying. But the producers totally told my guy friend to be the “negative” one and his wife to be the “positive” one. Now I look for fake negativity whenever I watch that show. (And I do watch it sometimes. Because I want to buy a house and I keep thinking I’ll gain perspective. When really I just judge people. And sometimes houses.)

Awww. I actually liked Cash Cab, but now I shy from it due to fakeness. Other than that, “reality” tv holds little to no appeal, but after growing up on Jeopardy and Trivial Pursuit, Cash Cab was able to fill a void for random trivia I didn’t know was inside. 🙂

The Island on Lost isn’t real!?! So I went on all those plane trips for nothing… Well you have definitely saved me a lot of money, but I’m pretty sure you’ve destroyed a lot of people’s lives. And now they don’t even have Dr. House or Dr. Frasier Crane to help them. You do good work.

Matthew Fox, from Lost, lives here where I do and a friend was dogsitting for him once while he was in Japan, and I thought how funny/freaky it would be to be seated next to him on a plane over the Pacific.

Well, if the person hasn’t read your blog post yet, they would probably freak out about how the plane was going to crash and they were all going to die or have crazy adventures… or they would make awkward jokes about flying to him the whole time. Wow, he must hate flying now.

I love this post, but the line on Charlie Sheen is my favorite. Someone asked me to retweet something really clever they’d written during his recent breakdown, a request I rejected with an explanation that mental illness isn’t something I like to poke fun at. I even like weeding more.

TV is the new opiate for the masses. By airing “reality” shows and wasting half hour blocks of our time selling products whose only need is in the mind of the charlatan hawking them we are headed to being the ultimately malleable audience, ready to be led by the nose to what ever fate the ubermeisters have determined for us.

Remember that great Calvin & Hobbes? Calvin reads the line “Religion is the opiate of the masses” and says, “What does that mean?” and behind him we see the TV thinking “It means Marx hadn’t seen anything yet.”

No! House Hunters isn’t real?! Say it isn’t so! I’m actually not being sarcastic. It sounds boring and at times it kind of is, but once it starts it’s hard to turn off. It’s TV that you don’t have to think about.

I’ll probably choose to be in denial over this and continue watching with the same naivety as I always have. How else can I possibly learn how to best choose 1 house out of 3 available in a 30 minute time frame?

Even though you are already a recommended blogger, this should get Freshly Pressed. Eye opening and hilarious! No way -House Hunters is fake??? Next you’ll be telling me that everyone is married on “Love in the Wild.” 🙂

Recently, I have been watching detective dramas and feeling bad for all the real detectives of the world. Clearly, the producers want the audience to feel “smart” for figuring out the crime scenarios before the TV detectives so they make the detectives look illogical and slow.

Thanks for crushing me on the HGTV show. For some reason even though we have a house now my wife and I still enjoy watching House Hunters. We actually do try and guess which one they will buy or now which one they have bought. We also watch the international one as well. What does that say about us?

I have genuinely never laughed as much as reading one of your many exerts from your quite literally brilliant blog. I believe the things you pointed out to be absolutely accurate, and on the house hunters things. Put your house up for sale, and be surprised how many friends/work colleagues and other acquaintances that have not been admitted into your home suddenly start saying how wonderful it is.
Brilliant for finding out how nosy we really are, or be like my retired over-middle-aged parents and househunt, with no intention of buying, simply, if not humourously, to slate their property, cleaning rituals, taste and home furnishings, branding them not your sort of people or the sort of neighbourhood, you could live in.
Oh for the middle class.

I’ve spent an hour or so staring into the mid-distance when I found out that Joanie didn’t love Chachi. My jacket potato was reduced to a crusty mush. But somehow that is not important anymore………..say it ain’t so. PLEASE!

for a second there i thought you were going to tell us the mtv shows weren’t real!
pheeeewww- glad they are, such informative programs! especially jersey shore. thanks to them, i now know how to be a sloppy drunk mess, and look like an oompa loompa mutation.